History

History

The Asian Centre for Entertainment Education (ACEE) was co-founded by Augustine Veliath and Vinta Nanda in 2012.

Augustine Veliath has worked with the UN for over 30 years before he retired and establish ACEE, and is a Communications Expert and Social Scientist. He has spent several years of his career in the Indian States of UP and Bihar, and continues as a Communications Consultant to the Ministries of Rural Development and Education, in both the States.

Vinta Nanda has produced over 16 long running TV serials as Director at Tracinema Limited in the mainstream business and more than another 8 in the model of Entertainment Education/Edutainment since 1991 in the Public Broadcast space and in partnership with the Government of India, UNICEF, VHAI, USAID, Johns Hopkins University and other international organisations. She has produced, directed and written the film 'White Noise' which was released in 2005 and has also produced and directed over 25 documentary films on various social issues. She was the president of the NGO, Project SMITA(Social Mobilisation and Information for Timely Action) from 1989 to 2006. She headed Content Strategy and Programming for 16 channels at Zee Network from 1999 to 2002 where she was the Director Ideation.

Our Work in the Past

The Asian Centre for Entertainment Education was co-founded in the year 2012 and the Third Eye program, a partnership between ACEE and Hollywood Health and Society (HH&S), was launched in March 2013 at FICCI Frames, the most prestigious annual conclave of the industry of entertainment in India. The Third Eye Program follows the HH&S model in India.

The Program partnered with content creators of popular entertainment in India and assisted creative teams by building platforms for discussions between them and experts from across various fields like social sciences, health and environment.

The Program has consulted on over 250 story-lines on mainstream entertainment and facilitated accuracy in the discourse on various issues like Family Planning, Reproductive Maternal and Child Health, Cancer, Mental Health and Environment/Climate Change.

We have organised various activities in the past which have enriched us as an organisation and have provided us with ample learning experiences to take the cause of entertainment education further. Some of those interesting happenings were;

Screenings

The Third Eye screened films in media dark areas with the purpose of raising awareness on issues on Health, Gender, Legal, Health, Sustainable Development, Environment, Social etc. As a follow up, qualitative and quantitative data were collected before and after the screening to ascertain the changes in attitudes and practices. This data was mapped in order to engineer a holistic understanding of the dynamics related to these issues across various rural and semi-rural areas all around India. The research is evaluative and is able to tangibly quantify the impact the various interventions have made.

Interventions

The Third Eye Program has consulted on two Medical Drama’s Hamari Sister Didi set in rural India on the Free-to-Air channel Sony Pal, and Roshni, a drama in an urban setting on the Digital Channel Life OK. The Program provided case studies to inspire the writing of the series, coordinated whetting of scripts with volunteer experts, and facilitated video referencing to bring realism to the narrative. The creative team at ACEE developed the Message Design and aligned with the team of writers to make the process of interventions seamless. In partnership with HH&S, the Program developed the research strategy and tools, and conducted a study in five cities in the State of Uttar Pradesh, to measure the impact of specific interventions made to the main story-line of the series.

Briefings

Supernova – Free-to-Attend monthly briefings were held where experts from the field of medicine, social development and media addressed a wide variety of socially relevant issues. Giving different perspectives on an issue gives the writers a greater understanding of the issues that they are addressing in their content.

Consultations

We facilitated experts from various fields to answer the queries of writers & content creators and offer them their perspective. They would share case examples and real stories from the fields of medicine, law, and social development, providing varied perspectives on the chosen topic, which served to enrich the storyline and add value to the content through the dialogue.

Story Bus Tours

The Third Eye arranged excursions for creative leaderships such as networks and studios, as well as writers and content creators to remote rural regions in order to acquaint them with grassroot realities in order to enrich their work with accuracy and realism in their portrayal of various ethnicities.

Even as we continue to organise these activities, ACEE’s scope of work has evolved over a period of time. You can find the list of activities/ services we undertake currently in the SERVICES section.

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Intern:

Join us for a few months to learn the ropes of entertainment plus and contribute towards making a change! Our interns participate in everything ranging from our digital activities to helping us create story concepts.

Events:

We organize a plethora of events every year! From monthly briefings, meetings, screenings to our annual conclave ‘Elevate’, come volunteer your time with us and help us make these events happen!

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Co-create:

The team at Asian Centre for Entertainment Education is a composition of creative minds that come together to provide you with support while you ideate, develop and/or write you project. Out here you will find teams of thinkers and writers who stalk data, amass research and fish for insights for you so that you can build unique stories, which nobody else in the world could’ve ever thought of. Take an appointment to call and chat, meet on Skype or in person and talk to us for hours and hours right till the time that you have cracked your story and till the time that you have walked away towards the stars.

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Impact:

Get in touch with us when you feel the need to bounce of your thoughts of someone and get feedback.

And also contact us if you need us to organize immersions for you in any part of India. The immersions can be customized to your needs and designed to take you to those places, which you have never been to before and also take you on that knowledge tour that you need to leave urgently for, to get to the depths of your stories.

Come Join Us!

Evaluate:

Tell us your story and tell us why you feel so passionate about it. We will identify you core audiences and take you to meet them even before you are ready to tell them your story.

Then we’ll take you back to your core audience or else we will bring your core audience right up to you after they’ve fallen in love with the characters; the people you created specially for them to relate to; those who resonated with their lives.
You know why we like to do the work that we do?

It is because we like to experience that magic unfold when we succeed in making you see for yourself, how you managed to transform the lives of the people whom you wrote your story for.

Our Experts are our backbone! Help us stand tall.

Experts:

Expertise in a given field is surely an asset, and we more than others, recognise this fact. Since accurate and relevant information is the key to a powerful story, we humbly invite you to allow us to facilitate your collaboration with writers, so that when you share your valuable knowledge,their work is enriched, and audiences benefit. We are looking for experts in the fields of: